


Rearrange the Stars

by pedanticsoothsayer



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Sole Survivor (Mass Effect), Spacer (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 09:16:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7165172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pedanticsoothsayer/pseuds/pedanticsoothsayer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannah Shepard would give her daughter the universe if she could, but she has to settle for the quiet moments between assignments and make up for lost time along the way. Being a marine and a mother isn’t easy, especially when you never know which of your kid’s birthdays will be the last you get to share together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rearrange the Stars

“Damn, kid. Twenty-plus hours. For someone so tiny, you’ve got a big head. Hope you’re not gonna want siblings, because I’m not doing that again.”

Hannah Shepard’s little girl yawned in her arms.

“You’ve got the right idea. I’d nap too, but your nana’s gonna be here soon to meet you. She’d have been here for the main event, but you were antsy.”

The bundle yawned again. Her warm, coppery skin shone against the white hospital blankets, though Hannah had been told she herself was glowing. She assumed they had meant the metaphorical glowing instead of the radioactive kind.

“You’ll like her,” Hannah added, adjusting the tiny hat with her free hand. “For now, it’s just you and-” She stopped mid-sentence when her baby’s fingers wrapped around one of hers. It was a strong grip for someone so little. Hannah grinned and kissed her forehead. “You and me against the galaxy, kid.”

 

None of it felt real to her yet. Even now that they were alone together, without anyone to bother them, she couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea that this was her kid. A tiny, squirmy, perfect kid.

 

A nurse stuck his head into the room, interrupting any lingering, poignant thoughts. “Sergeant Shepard?”

Hannah grimaced. It sounded like a character out of a campy military drama and everyone on the station, even those who weren’t obligated to, addressed her that way. Someone in command had to have a terrible sense of humor to recommend her for officer training in the first place.

“Your mother just arrived in the waiting room,” he said.

“Thanks for the warning.”

 

Suddenly very nauseous, Hannah braced her baby against her as she tried to sit up. Her hands had been shaking since the nurse had placed the little lump in her arms, but she held on as tight and careful as she could. She managed to sit up halfway before giving up and letting the pillows consume her. A quick glance down and she found that not only had her kid been unbothered by the awkward repositioning, but she had nodded off completely.

 

“Out like a light. Good call,” Hannah said, not daring to raise her voice above a whisper.

 

Dr. Yarelis Shepard was a thunderstorm of presence, authority, and confidence. As a Puerto Rican woman who had dedicated a lifetime to research and theory in xenobiology and came out the leader in her field, she didn’t have much of a choice. She had raised her children with the same hands that led post-doctoral work in a field once believed to be nothing more than fantasy. She had shared stories and prayed with them with the same lips that spun lectures that made sustainable colonization beyond the Sol system feasible. She was always in constant motion, never giving anyone a chance to second-guess her. But everything else on her mind came to a halt when she entered the room. She froze in the doorway, sizing up her daughter and granddaughter before bursting into a huge grin and practically running across the room.

 

“Mamá!” Hannah felt the grin spread across her freckled face.

“Hannah, mija,” Yarelis said while loosely embracing her to avoid squishing the baby between them. “Is everything alright? How are you?”

“Doing well, considering I just pushed something comparable to the size of a loaf of bread out of my body.”

“She’s beautiful,” Yarelis said, pulling back without waiting for Hannah to finish. She sat back on the hospital bed with a hand placed tenderly over one of her daughter’s. “May I?”

Nodding, Hannah leaned back so her mother could take over. Yarelis placed a hand expertly behind the baby’s head before shifting her over, holding her close to her chest.

 

“She’s so quiet,” she said, tilting her head to look closer at her granddaughter’s face.

“You weren’t here an hour ago.”

On cue, the baby’s eyes opened as she gave up on her nap and started acting fussy.

“Oh cariño.” She rocked back and forth, cooing over the newborn in a flurry of Spanish and cheery faces. “Have you decided on a name for her yet?”

“I wanted to get some opinions first. I’m going with whichever one you like the least.”

Yarelis’ laugh never left her throat, leaving behind a sound less disapproving than a scoff, but more annoyed than a chuckle.

 

\---

A few crumbs were all that was left of Averill’s birthday cake. Usually, Hannah looked forward to eating the leftovers herself, but had grown used to sacrificing the extra pieces now that there were three guests at her kid’s parties. She set the dishes in the sink for later, accidentally scraping her engagement ring on the counter. It had been another compromise of her quickly changing life. She’d begged Manuel to pick out something simple, but she still wasn’t used to the damn thing being there.

 

Hannah frowned across the kitchen at her boyfriend while Averill was distracted tearing wrapping paper off of the present in front of her. “I said you didn’t need to get her anything.”

“It’s just a little something,” Manuel said defensively.

Before Hannah could snap back, Averill finished destroying what was left of the neatly wrapped paper and squealed. “A ship!”

“Not just any ship. Here, look.” He pulled Averill and the box onto his knee. “See these panels, and the way the exhaust port looks. It’s a carrier. Just like the first ship your mom served on.”

Averill hugged the box close to her chest. With her curly, red pigtails and the chocolate frosting smudged on her face, Hannah couldn’t say no as she beamed up at her.

 

There went any plans of stealthily returning it later.

 

“What do you say, Avie?”

“Thank you Manny,” Averill said. “Can we open it?”

“How about in a little bit. Why don’t you go play with the dolls Nana and Grandpa sent?” he suggested, taking the hint from Hannah’s furrowed eyebrows.

Averill made a sour face, but did as she was told.

 

Manuel turned to Hannah and lowered his voice to a whisper. “What? I wasn’t not gonna to get her something. Even if she wasn’t your kid, I spend more time fishing her out of the engineering levels than I do talking to half my squad. She’s grown on me a bit.”

“You’re on thin ice, Rivera.”

“For getting my fiancee’s kid a birthday present? What are you gonna do? Make some angry calls and get me transferred so we see each other even less?”

Hannah crossed her arms and huffed, blowing a few auburn curls out of her face. “You know me. Never liked the idea of charity. I’ve had to fight tooth and nail to get to where I’m at and no one can say it was out of pity.”

“It’s not charity or pity. We’re going to be a family - we are a family, Hannah. Plus look at how happy she is.”

 

While they had been talking, Averill had given up on the dolls and was working on tearing open the box of her toy cruiser. Her fingers couldn’t quite rip the cardboard, but she was trying her hardest to pry it open.

 

“Alright, but only because you’re so damn cute talking about power couplings together. But I swear to god, if she ends up an engineer like you, we’re getting divorced.”

 

\---

“You promised.”

Those words tore Hannah’s heart in two from hundreds of light years away.

 

“I know, Avie. I know.” She pressed her forehead to the wall, biting back the urge to hit something. Her CO’s face would have been ideal, but would probably be grounds for a disciplinary hearing and a psych evaluation, at least. All of which would just mean more time away from her daughter.

The other end was silent.

“Avie, you there?” Hannah said, walking back over to the receiver.

“Yes.” Her voice was barely above a whimper.

“I’ll make it up as soon as I get back.” Hannah’s own words hung dead in the air.

After a brief pause, Averill asked, “When?”

“I...” Hannah swallowed. “I’m not sure right now, kid. But it’s only a quick detour,” she added quickly. “We’ll be on our way back before you know it. In the meantime, you and Manny get a chance to do anything special?”

“We got ice cream after school,” Averill said. Most kids her age would have been fooled by the change of subject, but she was still audibly upset. “Then, we watched the ships go by for a bit.”

 

Hannah smiled. Whenever she had leave, they spent hours together watching Alliance ships fly by. No matter where Hannah was stationed, Averill had a knack for finding the best view. At least when she wasn’t driving the station’s maintenance crew up the wall with her questions.

On Arcturus, Averill’s favorite place was an observation deck near the main docking bay and overlooked most of the station’s activity. For a stretch of a few hundred feet, the floors, ceiling, and far wall were entirely glass. She would giggle and run to the wall, or throw herself on the floor and watch the freighters and cruisers come and go. Manuel hated it.

She imagined her daughter’s chocolate-stained figures touching the reinforced glass while her husband only looked straight ahead to pretend there was solid ground under his feet. Hannah always gave him grief for being a career marine who turned green just by looking out a window. He’d snap back that not everyone grew up in space.

 

“Yeah? How was that?”

“It was okay.”

“Just okay? Avie, all you ever wanna do is sit and watch them.”

“Just okay,” she said. “Manny told me you wouldn’t make it back right after...” she trailed off, but spoke up again before Hannah could comfort her. “Please come home,” she blurted out.

“Averill...”

“That’s what I want. You to come back safe. Please be okay.”

 

For her daughter, Hannah would do a lot worse than give an officer a black eye if she thought it would do any good. She would do whatever it took to keep Averill safe; The same reason she put on her uniform was the same reason she hated to leave in it. But she couldn’t leave her baby with more empty promises, because when it came down to it, the only thing worse than hurting her was the idea that she could never see her again. She couldn’t tell Averill that.

They’d talked a few times, when other kid’s parents hadn’t come home, and Averill had reached a solid understanding of the stakes involved. She was a bright kid, but Hannah couldn’t let her worry if she could help it.

 

“I’ll do my job if you do yours - stay adorable.”

She heard a sniffle from the other end. “Okay Mom.”

“Keep Manny out of trouble, honey. I’ll be there as soon as I can, honey. I have to go.” Her finger lingered over the console before realizing the other end had already disconnected.

 

\---

When Averill said that she had to tell her something, Hannah’s brain went through every possibility she could think of. The first thing she jumped to was that she was pregnant. She dismissed this just as quickly since she had instilled in her daughter from very early on the prerogative that she needed to at the very least make it past the age Hannah herself had been. Besides, Averill had been very vocal about her disinterest in having children, or sex for that matter. It was more probable that she had failed a test, or even a class. Maybe she was considering dropping out altogether. Or nursing a drug addiction? Committed a felony? Was secretly dating an elcor? Considering a tasteless tattoo? Oh god she’d gotten one, hadn’t she?

 

Instead, when Hannah closed the door behind them, Averill handed her a datapad and winced. Hannah’s eyes glanced over the screen, only able to process a few words at a time. It was a letter of some kind, congratulating her on her acceptance to Alliance basic training.

 

Hannah had to fight the urge to say something stupid. Instead, she took a deep breath before looking at her daughter. “Listen, if you’re doing this to spite me, it’s not funny.”

Averill shot her a look, taking the datapad back with defensive irritation.

“Or a joke. Just tell me it’s a joke and we can laugh about this.”

“I finalized the paperwork this morning.”

Hannah buried her hands in her face in an attempt to hide the distress on her face. “We’d talked about this already. I thought you’d wanted to go to school, or the engineer corps.”

Averill shrugged, refusing to meet her eye. “I changed my mind.”

“For the love of god, honey. Why? You’re young and brilliant and can still do something with your life.”

“It’s what you did.”

“I would have thought that after eighteen years of living with me, doing the opposite of what I do is a damn good idea.”

“Mom, I’ve really thought about this,” Averill insisted. “I’m doing it because of you.”

Hannah opened her mouth to speak, but Averill cut her off.

“Let me finish. The Alliance is what I know. I’ve seen the good it can do and I want to be a part of it.”

“They should just go ahead and put you in ads.”

Averill rolled her eyes.

“I’m sorry. It’s just scary to think about. Come here, kid.” She held her arms open, her heart sinking as Averill hesitated. After pausing, Averill reciprocated, allowing Hannah to pull her into a bear hug. So much time had passed since she’d first held her little girl. Now she was nearly a foot taller than her, making comforting hugs very challenging. Her face got caught in Averill’s springy, red hair when she tried to pull her closer. Maybe, she couldn’t help but think to herself, if she held on tight enough she could keep things just the way they were. Even for just a little bit longer.

“Just can’t think of losing you to them,” she said.

“I think I’ll be okay. I’ve learned from the best.”

Hannah pulled her daughter closer so she couldn’t see her tears.

 

\---

If the Citadel represented the heart of pretentiousness in the galaxy, the Presidium was the obnoxious singularity at the center. What it lacked in humility, Hannah felt that it more than made up with it’s convenience. The Earth-style coffee shop wasn’t really her style either, but it was cozy and a good place to spend some quality time with Averill on the few times their postings allowed it. She’d almost had to threaten three superiors to get leave this weekend so she could keep her promise.

 

They had ordered their drinks and sat on the outdoor patio with a stunning view of the fountains and walkways below them. Sitting in silence, they watched the tiny dots hurry about their days while avoiding conversation. Hannah watched as Averill distractedly stirred her coffee, looking out over the water.

 

“How have things been going with the therapist?” Hannah asked. “Sounds like a real piece of work from what you’ve said in your messages,” she asked, mixing in her concern with small talk more carefully than she stirred in her cream.

“They signed off on everything so I haven’t been meeting recently.”

Hannah tried to hide the puzzled look on her face. “So you’re not talking to anyone anymore?”

“Since I’m cleared, no.”

“That means no one is checking in on you at all?”

“Mom, it’s fine.”

“Seriously, honey, I know how easily these cases fall through the cracks. I can make some calls and-”

Her daughter’s face reddened as she cut her off. “I appreciate it, but it’s really hard for people to take me seriously when you keep trying to get involved.”

“I’m just worried about you. You haven’t been acting the same since... recently.”

Averill stared blankly down at the table.

“There’s nothing wrong with help, especially with something like this.” She reached her hand across the table, but Averill drew back. “If I can’t be there, I want to know someone is looking out for you.”

“It’s fine.”

 

Averill stood suddenly, pushing back her chair and almost knocking over her cup. When their eyes met, Hannah was startled by how old she looked. Her eyes were distant and lined with bags in a way that should have been reserved for only the most wizened generals. They were empty and full of pain at the same time, and the worst part was the realization that it wasn’t something she could fix. She couldn’t make all of the bad things disappear anymore.

 

“I... I have to go. There’s something I need to...”

Hannah caught her by the hand, giving a reassuring squeeze. “I understand. Give Manny a call when you get a chance, he wants to check in too.”

She nodded before walking away.

“I’m here if you need me,” Hannah said to the empty chair in front of her.

 

\---

When Manuel went to turn the lights on, Hannah pulled the blanket over her head. Her legs were tucked to her chest, with her face buried in her fuzzy pajama pants. She could feel the bed sink as he sat down by her side and placed a hand on her. His thumb traced over the top of her blanket where her shoulder was, not saying anything.

 

“I’m not getting up,” she declared, her voice wavering. “Even if we get a call that the volus are invading or something, you can tell Hackett to shove it.”

“Wasn’t going to ask you to do anything,” he said. “Do you want me to stay?”

Months of pain were trapped behind Hannah’s eyes. She tried to blink them away, but wasn’t fast or strong enough to.

 

“I’m not going to say anything you haven’t already been told or felt,” he continued when she didn’t say anything. “I’ll be here, however you need me today.”

Hannah poked her head out from under the comforter. “Are you doing okay?”

His eyes were red and his face would have made a lumberjack envious. He pulled back when she reached a hand out, but leaned into her after she sat up. She wrapped her arms around his neck, hiding her tear-stained face in his chest.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Manuel admitted. “I spent the whole morning covering all of the picture frames again, just to break down when the calendar reminder I had set on my omnitool went off.”

“She’d be pissed at us, moping around instead of being out there.”

“I think we’ve earned some time to mope,” he said.

 

“God, I’m so proud of her.”

But not a day had passed since she’d gotten the call where she hadn’t wished it could have been someone else’s kid. She hated that feeling, because she knew it was wrong, but she would give everything just to hold her little girl one more time. Instead, she held all of the should-haves and could-haves inside of her head, hurting whenever she thought about everything she’d never told her.

She would have held Averill close and told her again and again how loved she was. How brave and strong she was, and how she’d only ever been right. She was perfect and flawless and blameless and wonderful in every way.

All Hannah could do was hope that she had known, and nurse her own aching heart.

 

Maybe later she or Manuel would work up the energy to make dinner and they would muster the strength to talk or laugh together over memories of birthdays past. Of a little girl with dreams as wide as the universe, of a young woman gone too soon.

For now, all they could do was hold each other close and silently mourn.

 

\---

Hannah kicked her shoes off and sat cross-legged on the end of the hospital bed. “I couldn’t get a whole cake in, but I’ve got some ice cream in my bag if it hasn’t melted yet.” Her heart leaped into her throat when Averill smiled, but she didn’t say anything since it would have been mushier than the quart of Neapolitan she’d smuggled into the hospital ward.

“You know I’m not supposed to,” Averill said, as indignant about breaking rules as ever.

“Come on, kid, you deserve a treat.”

“Everyone says that when they visit for some reason.”

“If your doctors really cared, they wouldn’t make it so easy to sneak stuff in. Plus, it’s not every day you turn - how are we counting these now? Are you thirty-two or thirty-four this year?”

Averill rubbed her neck, bringing half a dozen IV tubes along with it. “Let’s just say thirty-four.”

“You sure? Most people don’t get a real excuse to knock a few years off of their age.” She laughed when Averill rolled her eyes, then handed her a plastic spoon. “To Commander Shepard,” she said, raising her own spoon. “May she have many more birthdays after this one.”

“And Admiral Shepard,” Averill added, digging in to the chocolate third of the carton, “and her infallible sweet tooth.”

“Yeah, well my sugar problem didn’t save life as we know it.”

“It didn’t hurt either.”

Hannah winked.

 

They took turns with the carton, talking and laughing about lighter times and what the future might hold. Mostly, Hannah was glad to be at her daughter’s side, smiling more than she had in years. Every day presented new challenges in rebuilding the pieces of a fractured civilization as well as Averill’s recovery. The galaxy might have been held together by little more than duct-tape, but Hannah was more than content just to hold her daughter’s hand again.


End file.
